Talk:Honker
When Radcliffe first saw Kersauzon's honker leg he called it a "roc." I wondered why he changed the name--especially to such a stupid name as "honker." The only thing I can think of is that Roc was also the publisher. Turtle Fan 01:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC) :They were called that in the short stories. So "honker" was evidentally always going to be their name. TR 01:51, 5 December 2008 (UTC) ::Perhaps it would have transformed over time. Or maybe HT would have chucked the stories because he figured the trilogy would be the new standard for what's canonical--wouldn't be the worst consistency error he's ever made. (Hmm, I wonder what would count for that? I think my vote goes to having Carsten insist he went to Ireland in GWI.) Turtle Fan 02:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC) :::Not sure why he would have chucked the name, especially since he settled on it over two years before the publication of OA. Plus, one of those stories is devoted to the search for honkers. It seems unlikely he was going to change it "just because", and then changed his mind back because the publisher's name is the same as the prospective bird name. TR 03:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC) ::::I guess that makes sense from HT's point of view (though given his track record I still find it hard to imagine he made strict adherence to the short stories' establishments a priority) but it still doesn't explain why Radcliffe changed the name. Roc is cool, honker is ridiculous. A shame Radcliffe was so unoriginal in naming things, though at least he insisted on Atlantis instead of "Westland" or whatever Kersauzon wanted. ::::How is the story about the search for the honkers? I find it rather more tempting than the one about the weird not-Mormons. But what's that bit about the vast unsettled, uncharted tracts of Atlantis? Atlantis is not terribly big. Turtle Fan 03:24, 5 December 2008 (UTC) :::::It is the better story. It gives a nice little travelog for Atlantis (which makes sense since it was the first story), with a little bit of Terranova info thrown in. The second story, however, probably plays a more important role in the overall Atlantis history. TR 03:28, 5 December 2008 (UTC) ::::::Eh, I'm content with the history OA and USA have provided. ::::::I wonder what HT's got in mind for Round Three--ACW analog? The issue of slavery seems to be getting a fair amount of press in this one. Turtle Fan 06:08, 5 December 2008 (UTC) ::::Round three will be taking of Spanish Atlantis and the Servile Insurrection (mentioned in "The Scarlet Band), I assume. Plus the genesis of the House of Devotion. TR 16:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC) Hmm, seems HT has been very up on integrating the stories after all. Shows what I know. Turtle Fan 03:25, December 17, 2009 (UTC) Anyway . . . Shame no one ever thought to domesticate the honker. If they were so dumb, it couldn't've been that hard to drive a flock of them into a pen. They provide lots of meat and they're very low maintenence. The only reason I could maybe see for not doing so is that they would attract eagles to whatever farm they were on, unless you put a roof over their pen or something stupid like that. But you could build a sheltered lean-to at the edge of a pen and hope they'd be smart enough to take cover. Turtle Fan 03:25, December 17, 2009 (UTC) As I recall from the Audubon story, they could be quite vicious towards approaching humans. A six foot / 200 pound bird is nothing to scoff at. ML4E 03:29, December 17, 2009 (UTC) In OA they killed a man by kicking him to death. Still, you need to approach them to bop them over the head. I recognize they're dangerous, but I wouldn't think prohibitively so. On the other hand, nice to see they finally, finally developed an instinct to defend themselves against the invasive species that drove them to extinction. Turtle Fan 03:41, December 17, 2009 (UTC) Geese Is there textual evidence that supports the position that the honker is descended from geese? By textual evidence I mean characters saying out loud "I bet honkers are descended from geese," not just that they look like geese. If not, then this sentence is just speculative. TR 01:11, January 14, 2011 (UTC) :The changes I made are all from the "Audubon" story. It seems to me that HT decided to have honkers evolve from the Canada Goose but used the moa as the design for the actual birds while leaving superficial things like the feather markings to show the evolutionary path. This makes sense since the moa, the emu and the ostrich are all similar through parallel evolution so just add the honker to the set. ML4E 00:53, April 17, 2011 (UTC) ::I recall their being described as "giant geese" several times, though that could be either based on evolution or based on resemblance. More likely the latter, since the references I recall seem to cluster in OA, long before On the Origin of Species was written. Still, what ML4E's written above sounds perfectly reasonable to me, though I'd never given much thought to it before. Turtle Fan 15:57, April 17, 2011 (UTC)